Is the Games Industry Still going Downhill? April 2025

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It's the fourth year that I go to Reboot Develop Blue, a lovely games industry event in Croatia focused on more spontaneous networking and connections (there isn't any MeetToMatch to schedule meetings, you could contact people directly but in general you just show up and start talking to everyone organically).

I've asked a different range of people about their general vibes for the industry, if the post-Covid post-Embracer mess has eased things a little bit (for both publishers and developers alike) or if we're still going downhill with no investments, no hirings, no deals and what else. It seems that things are going better but only because we [industry] have accepted the situation and are planning accordingly, so... still bad!

Here's a short post for everyone who didn't attend the event, to share with you a few things I've heard and in the hope of helping you a little bit.

Deals and publishers

People are back signing deals, but it's slow as hell (previous average was 6 months, now I've also heard 12 for some teams) and super risk adverse.

Some publishers/investors are asking for tens of thousands of wishlists before being able to even evaluate a project, and others are also asking for a demo live on the store and some community proof (e.g. Discord). At that point - if you have already developed so much and promoted your game well enough - I wonder why you'd need a publisher in the first place other than money... but that's for another post.

"Finishing funds" are more common now as well. You already have 70% of your game developed or whatever and you need the remaining funds to complete it and release it. Deals like this won't surely ask you for 50% of your revenue... right?

Are we at the bottom?

Some people told me that the "downhill" trend seems to have stopped and we might be at the bottom of the curve now. Knowing that this is the worst it can happen, companies seem to have accepted the situation and are planning accordingly (which means new opportunities for navigating this mess).

I mean, an investor's job is to invest... so at one point money will move again from one place to another, but I wouldn't agree much to call things "stable" now. Just as I am writing this post, the USD ($) value is sinking day by day and it's still not clear how the US tariffs will impact the games market. Even Nintendo paused the preorder of the Switch 2, waiting for extra news.

Be careful if you have deals receiving or paying money in USD, while your studio lives any other currency.

The trend-chasing problem

Some publishers are looking for games similar to Balatro. But... the best Balatro-like is already out and it's called.... Balatro???

I will never understand this way of funding games. How many "survivors" games (from Vampire Survivors) were successful? Or how many "social deduction" games (like Among Us) or "Lethal Company"-likes were successful? Well.. kinda a few. F#$k. Steam releases around 14,000 games per year now, so the odds of a clone outperforming the original are pretty bad.

Okay, fine, I understand it. No one wants to throw money at random games hoping not to lose them. One needs some reassurance that the project is promising - which could be wishlists, popular genre, trends and whatever - and that it has more chances to return the money back and then some.

I just hope that taste will become a bigger defining factor when signing games, something that scouts can have but the upper you go in the management chain and the more it becomes irrelevant anyways.
Numbers and math are more reassuring and easier to look at, and it's forcing some teams to create deck building roguelites like it's the only viable genre right now and there are no other ideas left.

Final thoughts

Other than that... games keep getting developed and the industry is still going forward - even if a few are scared for GTA6 and are not releasing anything until it's out - and it will never stop.

In this Reboot I've met many old friends and made new ones as usual, but with some conversations and experiences that made this edition really special and which I'll never forget.

We have our own clear direction now and are lucky enough to be able to continue experimenting it for a bit, and if you can... I'd advise you to do the same. Trust yourself and follow your own path, or the many industry indecisions might carry you around and you might lose a lot of time in-between (as it happened with us last year).

The experiences and contexts are so different that it's impossible to give a universal advice anyways, so.. let's just hope things keep improving and faster.

Frequently asked questions

Is the games industry in a better place in 2025 than in 2024?

Marginally, but mostly because teams have accepted the situation and planned around it, not because conditions have genuinely improved.

What are "finishing funds" in game development publishing?

Finishing funds are investments made when a game is mostly complete (say 70% done) and the developer needs the remaining budget to ship. They typically come with lower revenue cuts than early-stage deals.

Why do publishers keep looking for Balatro-likes or Vampire Survivors clones?

It reduces perceived risk: proven genres give investors a data point to justify the decision. It's easier to compare a pitch to an existing hit than to evaluate something entirely new.

Thanks you for following us and please let me know what you think. Cheers and see you on the next post!